March 12, 2024

Joseph Zitt's [as if in dreams] 2024-03-11

Hi. I'm Joseph Zitt. I moved from the US to Israel in 2017. This is my newsletter about more-or-less daily life in my city in the shadow of war. You can select these links to subscribe or unsubscribe. There are more links at the bottom. You can also read this email online here. Here we go...

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Walking through the city to our south, I see variations on the same poster every few minutes.¹

On a red background, the head of our prime minister bobs in from the side or partially pops up from below. Black letters shout, "You are the head." White letters below them state, "You are to blame." Small type to the side tell us that it was created by a group of fighters from the 1973 Yom Kippur war. Fifty years after their battles, they're still fiercely involved.

(Writing this, I'm only a bit surprised to discover that my memory of the colors are completely wrong. I go back up to the previous paragraph and fix it.)

A graffitied version of it near the spiral mall is different. The top line of text says "The Rabbi from Lubavitch is the Messiah." It's followed by "You are the head. You are --" then something other than "to blame." I can't tell what it is. The whole time that I'm waiting for the bus across the street, someone else is standing in front of a couple of letters. There's no telling what's behind them.

Hebrew is a compact language with short words. Leave out a letter or two and meaning disappears. We don't even write down the vowels. I can't imagine what a local version of "Wheel of Fortune" might be like. (Checking later: Holy cow, there was one.²)

Where I first get off the bus, near the Centennial Tower downtown, a deserted storefront is painted with what might be the image of a meadow. At the upper right, English words say, "Rising from dust." Hebrew text below it says, "Let us dance in quietness." It might be a reference to the massacre at the rave on October 7th. Or it might be a reference to the noisy construction in the middle of the street, where they're building another light rail line.

Our Eurovision video has been officially released.³ It's similarly ambiguous. The frenetic movements of the dancers, garbed all in black or all in white, and other aspects of the film could still be read as a reference to those lost in the massacre. But they, along with the new, more generic lyrics,⁴ could just be about a relationship gone wrong.

The music is moving, well-crafted if not at all surprising. I suspect that Eurovision entries get extra credit for how much they sound like Abba.

As I walk past the Centennial Tower, a band of teenage boys marches past me. They are singing and playing patriotic songs with drums, guitars, and melodicas. One tries to hand me a bag of something. I decline. I'm holding my water bottle and an espresso. I have run out of hands.

The sound system in a shop on the outside of the mall is playing an impossibly peppy instrumental version of "Seasons in the Sun."[^sits-ytb] On the sidewalk, a woman in a black leather coat holds the hands of a child dancing to the music.

At a traffic light farther down, a food delivery worker on a motorcycle sings 4 Non Blondes' "What's Up." Couples on either side of me argue in different languages. I can't tell what one of them is. I feel like I've stumbled into Sense8.⁵

A WhatsApp message from the Cinematheque tells me of a film festival in which they're participating this week.⁶ It's normally held in a city on the southern border that has been evacuated. Cinemas in other cities around the country are showing the movies and hosting the speakers that would have been there. A live Zoom event will bring all the venues together.

A message from a local news site links to a video from students at one of our high schools.⁷ Purim is coming. People often light firecrackers and other small explosives to celebrate. The students are asking people not to do so this year. They have been told that there are a lot of soldiers and others around with PTSD and other aspects of anxiety, which might be triggered by explosions happening around them.

Another article on the site interviews a previous mayor of the city, who, it turns out, was important in getting the new mayor elected.⁸ She sounds enthusiastic about the changes that he may make.

But asked to say something about the general state of the nation, she's not so chipper:

"Catastrophe, depression, grief, sadness, helplessness. I'm constantly waiting for something that doesn't come. Waiting for the abductees and they don't come, waiting for the elimination of Hamas and it still isn't happening. I'm waiting for the elections and they aren't coming either. Nothing is happening - we're in a state of Loss of senses, frustration and sadness."

A relative sends me an article about the casualty numbers coming from across the border.[^stat-gaz] While much of the media, as well as officials elsewhere, repeat the numbers that the supposed government there puts out, a good look at the numbers gives strong evidence that they are fake. They're too smoothly consistent to represent anything real.

How the Gaza Ministry of Health Fakes Casualty Numbers - Tablet Magazine

My relative writes:

"As a statistician, I agree with the author. In the real world, data is always messy. A simple model that fits the data really well is cause for suspicion that the data is artificial."

Meanwhile, it looks like that area is, in the words of US officials, "turning into Mogadishu."⁹ Reuters reports that, in the absence of police, armed gangs in masks are roaming the streets and taking control.¹⁰

I've been riding between the spiral mall and city hall for years without getting off the bus anywhere on the route. I walk through it today.

I get a poke bowl for lunch at a place that has been tempting me for a long time. It's OK. I start to order in Hebrew, but after two words, the worker interrupts me in English. I stick to the Hebrew. It helps that there's a bilingual menu on the wall behind him. When he hears that I'm going for it, he reverts to Hebrew, too, through he does ask me which of two kinds of fish I mean when I say something ambiguous.

I see that the Shake Shack isn't crowded today. I get the Honeycomb Crunch Concrete.¹¹ Fortunately, it doesn't contain any actual concrete. (I'm reminded of a gag from the Addams Family.¹²)

it's also OK. I don't think I'll try it again. But I have done my duty as an erstwhile American by eating at Shake Shack once.

My favorite CD shop put in a coffee counter a while back. It now has turned into a coffee shop that also has records. The CDs and DVDs are hidden away upstairs.

I get a double espresso. I feel a burst of energy. It may be a placebo effect, but it works. I now have enough energy for the long bus ride home.

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You can find me via email, Bluesky, Mastodon, Facebook, and, just out of inertia, X/Twitter. There's more about me and my books, music, and films at josephzitt.com.

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L'hitraot.